VANCOUVER — When Nashville Predators defenseman Ryan Suter was growing up in Wisconsin, he learned more about his father Bob's 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey exploits from teachers than from his dad.

"He never talked about it at all," Ryan said. "It was never my dad the gold medalist. It was my dad the hard-working guy who runs a sporting goods store and does what he can for youth hockey."

To Ryan, Bob Suter's 1980 gold medal was a show-and-tell item more than a symbol of the greatest sports triumph of the 20th century.

"The gold medal was always wherever," Ryan said laughing. "In the dresser, or on the kitchen counter. And once I left it in a kid's locker at school … and when I left it there no one even asked me about it at home."

As naive as Ryan, 25, might have been as a child about his dad's success, he makes up for it today with the pride he has in being the only son of a member of the 1980 U.S hockey gold medalist to play in the NHL and to follow in his father's footsteps as an Olympian. Ryan will be among the big-minutes players Thursday when the USA plays Norway (3 p.m. ET) in the second game of pool play.

"We both signed a USA Hockey jersey, and he wrote 1980 next to his name and I wrote 2010, and it hit me how neat that is," Ryan said.